Asian Writers Group: Workshop with Mai-Anh Peterson – 20th September 2023

Calling all Asian writers in/from the UK!

Join us for our Asian Writers Group on Wednesday 20 September, 7-9pm.

To celebrate ESEA Heritage Month, we’re hosting this workshop led by Mai-Anh Peterson of besea.n!

Please be mindful when booking. This is an event for Asian writers based in the UK.

For writers of East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, West Asian, and/or mixed heritage

Celebrate with us in this evening of creativity, connection, and innovation, brought to you by one of the core team members behind Britain’s East and Southeast Asian Network (besea.n)!

Writers at all levels of experience, from beginners to veterans, and in all disciplines, forms, and genres are welcome.

This is a writing workshop for Asian writers centred on the theme ‘Roots/Routes.’ Together, we will aim to support the exploration and celebration of cultural heritage and personal journeys. The workshop will include prompts for storytelling and reflective writing, to encourage participants to delve into their family roots, ancestral connections, and the routes or journeys they’ve taken in life. Additionally, there will be space for group discussions, to promote a supportive and empowering environment for participants to express their unique experiences and perspectives.

The aim of this workshop is to create a safer space for Asian writers of colour to come together and share their creativity, their ideas, and their heritage, while celebrating East and Southeast Asian heritage. We appreciate that everyone has different backgrounds and different stories to tell, but we welcome all voices regardless of race or ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, disability status etc, as long as our intent is focused on care and empathy. We also recognise that the terms ‘Asian’, ‘ESEA’, or ‘BIPOC’ may be more meaningful to some than others, that some people may not identify with these terms, and language and identity are ultimately fluid concepts. This workshop is for anyone with Asian heritage in the UK who wants to honour their roots/routes – this includes anyone of mixed heritage.

Register here for Asian Writers Group: Workshop with Mai-Anh Peterson

About Mai-Anh

Mai-Anh is a British-Vietnamese, Hong-Kong-born, Edinburgh-based Londoner. She is a co-founder of besea.n (Britain’s East and South East Asian Network), advocate for ESEA communities in the UK, writer and SaaS program manager, passionate about digital solutions and social justice. She has written for publications such as gal-dem, Bad Activist Collective and Shado magazine, covering topics of advocacy, migration, anti-racism and ESEA community building. She has delivered workshops and speaking events for organisations like China Exchange, Imperial College London, Amazon, Microsoft and PayPal, and regularly conducts active bystander training to support victims of identity-based violence. In her spare time, she enjoys butchering the Vietnamese language (‘learning’), devouring #ESEAReads and sampling different #ESEAEats. With some of her besea.n colleagues, she is currently working on a book about ESEA advocacy and activism in the UK. You can find her on Instagram @maianhpeterson or on Twitter @mapeterson8.